Gilbert Talbot, second son of the Earl of Shrewsbury, and dated ‘from my chamber in Sheffield Castle,’ 19 Aug. 1574 (sic). It introduces Skelton, Wager, Heywood, Googe, Studley, and others, and near the end contains a furious attack on Bonner as the devil's agent on earth. Presumably he had suffered at Bonner's hands. 3. ‘A Golden Mirrour conteininge certaine pithie and figurative Visions prognosticating Good Fortune to England and all true English Subjects … whereto be adjoyned certaine pretie Poems, written on the Names of sundrie both noble and worshipfull,’ London, 1589 (reprinted for the Chetham Society, with introduction by Corser, in 1851).
[Authorities given above; Corser's introduction to the reprint of A Golden Mirrour (Chetham Soc.); Hazlitt's Handbook, pp. 70, 515, and Coll. 1st ser. p. 362; Collier's Bibl. Cat. ii. 271–2; Cat. Huth Libr.]
ROBINSON, RICHARD, first Baron Rokeby in the peerage of Ireland (1709–1794), archbishop of Armagh, born in 1709, was the sixth son of William Robinson (1675–1720) of Rokeby, Yorkshire, and Merton Abbey, Surrey, by Anne, daughter and heiress of Robert Walters of Cundall in the North Riding. Sir Thomas Robinson (1700?–1777) [q. v.], first baronet, was his eldest brother; his third brother, William (d. 1785), succeeded in 1777 to Sir Thomas's baronetcy. The youngest brother was Septimus (see below). The Robinsons of Rokeby were descended from the Robertsons, barons of Struan or Strowan, Perthshire. William Robinson settled at Kendal in the reign of Henry VIII, and his eldest son, Ralph, became owner of Rokeby in the North Riding of Yorkshire by his marriage with the eldest daughter and coheiress of James Philips of Brignal, near Rokeby.
Richard Robinson was educated at Westminster, where he was contemporary with Lord Mansfield, George Stone [q. v.] (whom he succeeded as primate of Ireland), and Thomas Newton, bishop of Bristol. He matriculated at Christ Church, Oxford, on 13 June 1726, and graduated B.A. in 1730 and M.A. in 1733. In 1748 he proceeded B.D. and D.D. by accumulation. On leaving Oxford he became chaplain to Blackburne, archbishop of York, who, in 1738, presented him to the rectory of Etton in the East Riding. On 4 May of the same year he became prebendary of York (Le Neve, Fasti Eccles. Anglic. iii. 192), with which he held the vicarage of Aldborough. In 1742 he was also presented by Lord Rockingham to the rectory of Hutton, Yorkshire.
In 1751 Robinson attended the Duke of Dorset, lord lieutenant, to Ireland as his chaplain. He obtained the see of Killala through the influence of Lords Holderness and Sandwich, his relatives, and was consecrated on 19 Jan. 1752. He was translated to Leighlin and Ferns on 19 April 1759, and promoted to Kildare on 13 April 1761. Two days later he was admitted dean of Christ Church, Dublin. After the archbishopric of Armagh had been declined by Newton, bishop of Bristol, and Edmund Keene of Chester, it was offered to Robinson by the influence of the Duke of Northumberland (then lord lieutenant) contrary to the wishes of the premier, George Grenville, who brought forward three nominees of his own (Walpole, Memoirs of George III). Robinson became primate of Ireland on 19 Jan. 1765.
Robinson did much both for the Irish church and for the see of Armagh. To his influence were largely due the acts for the erection of chapels of ease in large parishes, and their formation into perpetual cures; the encouragement of the residence of the clergy in their benefices; and the prohibition of burials in churches as injurious to health (11 & 12 George III, ch. xvi., xvii., and xxii.). He repaired and beautified Armagh Cathedral, presented it with a new organ, and built houses for the vicars choral. The city of Armagh itself he is said to have changed from a collection of mud cabins to a handsome town. In 1771 he built and endowed at his own cost a public library, and two years later laid the foundations of a new classical school. Barracks, a county gaol, and a public infirmary were erected under his auspices, while in 1793 he founded the Armagh Observatory, which was endowed with lands specially purchased, and the rectorial tithes of Carlingford [cf. art. Robinson, Thomas Romney]. The historian of Armagh estimates the archbishop's expenditure in public works at 35,000l., independent of legacies. He also built a new marble archiepiscopal palace, to which he added a chapel. In 1783 he erected on Knox's Hill, to the south of Armagh, a marble obelisk, 114 feet high, to commemorate his friendship with the Duke of Northumberland. At the same time he built for himself a mansion at Marlay in Louth, which he called Rokeby Hall: his family inhabited it till it was abandoned after the rebellion of '98. John Wesley, who visited Armagh in 1787, entered in his ‘Journal’ some severe reflections on the archbishop's persistent indulgence in his taste for building in his old age, citing the familiar Horatian lines, ‘Tu secanda marmora,’ &c. (Journal, xxi. 60).
